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Good news! Amras and I have been officially released from our \u201cjust returned home to Canada from abroad\u201d self-isolation period. We will soon be free to at the very least walk around the neighbourhood! My first trip to the drugstore was\u2026an experience.<\/p>\n
However, even though the Canadian government is taking pretty good care of its citizens, we cannot live on the C.E.R.B stipend, at least not with that much ease. Which means I step into a title I never thought I would hold: I am, as of tomorrow, an Essential Worker.<\/p>\n
Yup, those hometown heroes you keep reading about? The ones keeping the grocery stores open and the lights on? I get to join my Dad as one of them. Turns out one of the business types that has been deemed essential in our province is hardware stores. Which means my little go-between job at the local store has been transformed into\u2026something\u2026important?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been in and out of retail most of my adult life. It was a way to make ends meet through school and continues to be a way to make ends meet now. I usually swing in between contracts because the store needs the help and I need vacation money. But this is not a vacation. Amras and I are \u201clanded\u201d for the indefinite future, the jury is very much still out on whether or not we will ever return to ships again (please don\u2019t ask, we don\u2019t know yet), and we have to do day to day things like eat and pay bills. That means heading out into the fray\u2026<\/p>\n
If I really look it in the face, I\u2019m more than a little nervous about stepping back into the retail world tomorrow. For one thing, it\u2019s actually been quite some time since I was around a lot of \u201cnormal\u201d people at once. It\u2019s been two weeks since I returned home and, while I\u2019ve been doing nothing but playing video games and watching streaming TV, I honestly don\u2019t know that I feel fully rested or recovered, and I\u2019m not 100% sure how to handle being back \u201cout in the world\u201d. For a second, \u00a0way more important thing, since I\u2019ve been home? I\u2019ve seen a shocking amount of people who seem to think that just because there is a plan<\/em> to slowly return things back to normal that they are<\/em> back to normal.<\/p>\n I never expected things on land to be as insanely strict as they were on the ship, but I also never expected to so quickly starting seeing the opposite<\/em> of what was enforced on us. When I step out the door tomorrow, and walk through the doors of the stock room, I can\u2019t help but feel like I\u2019m playing some bizarre game of Russian roulette. We all<\/em> are! Every single person who will be working that floor \u2013 and every other floor – with me. Every grocery store worker, hardware store clerk, delivery man, all of us. We\u2019ll be working because we have to on many levels, but that doesn\u2019t mean that I\u2019m not more than a little bit\u2026uneasy about the concept. If it were possible (and it\u2019s not) I would have my whole family staying here, in the house, safe and isolated and away<\/em>.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not possible.<\/p>\n So I ask this of you, of all of you: please remember that just because things suddenly seem \u201cnormal\u201d doesn\u2019t mean they are. Science and history tells us that this is the most vulnerable part of the curve, when everything seems so much better and everyone seems fine and we\u2019re all tired and we all have cabin fever. Remember ,the virus is not tired. It is not gone, it\u2019s just been controlled. To keep<\/em> it controlled, we need to keep being sensible.<\/p>\n Stay home if you can. Please. And if you must go out, if you must<\/em> do more than just take a walk down the street and back for exercise. Please, be smart about it. When we ask you to wear a mask and practice social distancing, to not try to pay with cash (yes Canadian cash is washable, but with the number of transactions going through at the store right now we don\u2019t have time to do that), and to stay on the other side of the plexiglass<\/em> \u2013 we are not doing it to annoy you, we are doing it to protect us. You may be only jumping out of your car to grab one item from the store and then running straight home again. People like my Dad and I? We\u2019ll be in that store 8 hours a day, multiple days a week, dealing with hundreds of people\u2026<\/p>\n Normally that\u2019s not at all a big deal, it goes with the job. Now? It\u2019s a little bit scary\u2026<\/p>\n So please, I remind you all of what I\u2019ve been trying to remember myself through all of this: be kind. Remember that sometimes being kind means you have to be a little inconvenienced for the good of someone else. Sometimes being kind takes a form that you don\u2019t expect. But please\u2026be kind.<\/p>\n And\u2026as for me?<\/p>\n Well\u2026 \u201cMay the odds be ever in [my] favour\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good news! Amras and I have been officially released from our \u201cjust returned home to Canada from abroad\u201d self-isolation period. We will soon be free to at the very least walk around the neighbourhood! My first trip to the drugstore … Continue reading